The Internet has birthed a new useful tool to keep tabs on politicians. It's a browser plug-in called "Greenhouse" and it lets users easily access information on where our public servants get their campaign donations.

For example, if you were reading recent news about Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her views on Obamacare, simply hovering a mouse over her name would bring up a political baseball card of sorts. Greenhouse lists the top 10 industries from which a politician receives money, and Pelosi's number one comes from health professionals. They gave her slightly over $200,000 in 2012 (see image right).

The software, which launched early in June for browsers Safari and Google Chrome and just last week for Firefox, also highlights what percentage of a politician's funds come from presumably grassroots supporters, those who make donations of $200 or less. For Pelosi, that comes out to a mere 4.8 percent.

Greenhouse's creator, Nicholas Rubin, explains on his website that "even though I am only 16 years old, not quite old enough to vote, I am old enough to know that our political system desperately needs fixing. I hope that this tool is one step in that direction."

Rubin says the name of his plug-in comes from a desire for transparency, like the glass walls of a greenhouse. One may also infer something about politicians and hot gas as well, but he doesn't explicitly make that point. The young coder gives some insight into his own political philosophy and mission:

The influence of money on our government isn't a partisan issue. Whether Democrat or Republican, we should all want a political system that is independent of the influence of big money and not dependent on endless cycles of fundraising from special interests. The United States of America was founded to serve individuals, not big interests or big industries. Yet every year we seem to move farther and farther away from our Founders' vision.

Technology blog Engadget critiques the fact that the Rubin's data is a few years old. He replied that "the information in the popup is from the last full election cycle (ending in 2012) because it is most complete data available." Rubin pulls his information from the Center for Responsive Politics Open Secrets website, which tracks lobbying and campaign contributions, and "plan[s] to update the data in the popup itself later in this election cycle as 2014 contributions are more complete."

Okay I installed the greenhouse plug-in for firefox, although I use Pale Moon; it installed fine.

Really a neat plug in, when you go to a site where there is a congressional politicians name; the name will be highlighted in green, hover over the name and an info box will show what percentage of their campaign funds come from donors 200 dollars or less, and who the corporate donors are.

For instance I went to an article about , his name was highlighted I hovered over the name and it showed me who all the donors were, less than one percent came from the people, the rest came from corporations or others like Lawyers and such.

Works at FR also...

6
posted on 06/23/2014 11:24:11 AM PDT
by PoloSec
( Believe the Gospel: how that Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again)

Yeah show me the money they don’t report from the shady back room deals then I’ll be interested. Now if they had a relationships analysis tool like intelligence analysts use I’d be all over it. That’s pretty expensive software though.

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